


Armitage and the Dangerpups’ Den of Doom

by rudbeckia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Death, Emotional Abuse, Gen, Gore, Horror, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 19:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Young Armitage is taken planetside by his awful father and humiliated, left to wait in the open. He takes shelter from the weather in some woods, where he finds a cave and is adopted as the latest pack member by some cute little creatures.Really cute.Or so he thinks, until Admiral Brooks turns up yelling and threatening violence.(Title and fic inspired by a typo of mine on twitter and a great follow up tweet by MsModernity).





	Armitage and the Dangerpups’ Den of Doom

Armitage hates being planetside. The gravity is never quite comfortable and the atmosphere always smells odd—like perfume masking dirt—not at all like the scrubbed and recirculated sterile air of a Star Destroyer. The first time Father made him set foot on a planet surface, he held his breath until he almost fainted.

The repercussions of that weakness could still be seen on his thin arms for a week.

He’s older now. Twelve going on thirteen and more experienced in hiding his discomfort. He steps carefully out of the shuttle, keeping a good distance behind Father in case he stumbles, and finds that the gravity is a little light for his liking. He’ll have to concentrate not to bounce his steps too high and draw attention to himself. Not that Father is likely to notice, Armitage thinks with a relieved little sigh. Not when he has Admiral Brooks’s ear all to himself.

He can’t help wincing at the memory of his clumsiness. He didn’t mean to let the tray slip. He never does. And he was cleaning up like the Admiral demanded so he still didn’t understand why he had a new purple bruise blossoming on his jaw. He blinks back the sudden, unwelcome heat of welling tears and forces himself to think of something strong. Today he will make Father proud. He will.

If only he knew how.

Father and the Admiral are getting further ahead so Armitage marches faster until he stumbles. Father turns and scowls.  
“Why are you following, you little slug? Did the Admiral or I invite you?”  
Armitage freezes. “Um, n-no sir,” he says. “I thought—“  
“Pathetic,” Father says, turning back to his conversation with Brooks. “I should send him back to the shuttle with an escort to babysit him.”  
“Why waste the manpower?” Brooks looks at him as if he was something stuck on the Admiral’s boot. “Make him wait right here.”  
Armitage sees Father look up at the clouds then look at him.  
“Why not,” he says. “You’re to remain there, boy. And don’t go wandering off or I’ll leave you here for the wildlife.”  
“Not that they’d get much sustenance from him,” the Admiral says with a snorting little laugh. “Thin as a slip of paper.”  
“And twice as useless,” Father says, joining in with the joke Armitage has never quite understood.

He does as he is told. Armitage sits down on the grass and watches the small party walk through the palace gates. It’s warm enough that he won’t need the coat he left in the shuttle, and he gets used to the pungent smell of the atmosphere. He’s tempted to sleep and does drift off into a peaceful doze, but fat raindrops splash his face and wake him. He gets up and makes for a little clump of trees in front of the bluff off to his right. He jogs over, reaching shelter just as the sky crackles and rain falls in earnest. He knows it won’t take long for the canopy to be soaked through and useless so he walks further into the little wood, looking for somewhere to wait out the rainstorm.

Something rustles the undergrowth as it passes him and vanishes. He follows and finds a narrow crack in the face of the rock, wide enough for him to enter, opening a little wider and providing good shelter. From the entrance he can just see the palace gates so he can judge when to return to the spot where he was told to wait. He settles down as comfortably as he can.

When something brushes softly against his leg he jumps up and screams, looking around him for whatever monster might regard him as a meal. But the only creature he sees is laughably small, even more pathetic than he is. It stands about half as high as his knee, it has shaggy beige fur with leaves stuck here and there in it, and when it looks up at him its eyes are big, dark and mournful. When it emits a soft _meep-meeeep?_ Armitage laughs.

“Are you waiting for better weather too, little thing?” he asks.  
The creature scurries back and looks at him again.  
“I won’t hurt you,” Armitage says. “I promise.”  
The creature slowly moves toward Armitage, two step back for every three tentative steps forward. Armitage looks away in case direct observation frightens it, and in his peripheral vision he sees it shake its fur and approach with more confidence.  
“What a sweet little thing you are!” Armitage says when it is just within arm’s reach. He doesn’t move to touch it, but it comes close and brushes his leg again. Armitage laughs and plucks a leaf from its back. The creature jumps away with a _mipmipmip_ of alarm, but returns after a few minutes and allows Armitage to remove the rest of the vegetation caught in its fur.

The creature settles beside him and Armitage appreciates its warmth. After an hour or so, another appears from the deeper recesses of the cave behind him, then another, and soon he has several small, warm, _meepmeeeep-_ing creatures in varying shades of brown and beige around him, taking turns under the attention of his fingernails and listening to his voice as he tells them softly a story about the Big Bad Admiral and the Poor Little Cabin Boy.  
“Look at you all!” he says quietly when he’s finished. “Like pups. So cute!”

At that moment, all of the small creatures stiffen into a state of alert. Armitage looks around but sees nothing. With no warning that Armitage can detect, a larger creature crashes through the undergrowth and yells.  
“You there! Boy! Get up, you little bastard.”  
“Yes, Admiral Brooks!” Armitage says. He scrambles to his feet, but not fast enough for the Admiral’s liking. Brookes aims a blow at Armitage’s head and Armitage braces for the impact.

But the Admiral’s fist doesn’t land.

The Admiral’s fist is missing. Instead of a hand, the Admiral has a ragged stump that sprays Armitage and his new pets with blood. He gapes at it with horror. Eyes wide, Armitage covers his mouth to stop a scream from escaping. The creatures sniff at the blood spatter on each other for three seconds and, as if on a signal, they launch themselves at Admiral Brooks and swarm over him. Brooks screams, falls over and flops around. Armitage watches aghast until it is clear that the Admiral’s movements are only caused by the creatures’ pulling and jostling as they scuffle to get at the best parts.

Sixteen minutes after the first bloodshed, there is little left but a few shreds of uniform and a blaster. The creatures settle down to groom one another, occasionally yawning and displaying their impossibly wide mouths with rows of triangular serrated teeth, now and then belching and coughing up pieces of grey and black uniform. Armitage sits as still as he can, eyes screwed shut, when one of them starts grooming the Admiral’s blood spray from his face.

When he finds that he is inexplicably still alive and the creatures are sleeping off their meal, Armitage stands up slowly and pockets the Admiral’s blaster. He croons to the beige-furred creature he first met when it opens one eye and _meep-mip_-s at him.  
“I have to go,” he says gently. “Perhaps we might meet again.”

Armitage is careful to walk away from the den very slowly and he only breaks into a run when he’s clear of the trees. He makes for the shuttle, mercifully still on the ground, and smooths his hair when he gets to the entry ramp.  
“Where have you been?” Father demands. “Never mind you useless piece of— I don’t care. Have you seen Admiral Brooks?”  
“Yes, Father,” Armitage says.  
“WELL?” Father glares at him.  
“Uh, he said to tell...” Armitage thinks fast. He remembers overheard snatches and snippets of conversations when he’s been relegated to serving drinks. “He ordered me to inform you that he wishes to remain at the palace to... to... oversee further negotiations.”  
“Huh.” Father seems put out but not surprised. “He did seem keen to conduct the negotiations on his own. Well, I suppose we can wait for another hour but then we have to get back. Where did you wander off to? Should’ve left you.”

An idea strikes Armitage and makes him feel giddy.  
“Father?” He makes his voice as ingratiatingly cheerful as he can. “I sheltered in the woods nearby. It’s a rather pleasant place to visit. Would you like me to show you?”


End file.
